2018 Conference

“What a fantastic event it was and real credit must go to Tony Johns, hon Secretary to BMEEA for organizing it!”

– Tom Merriman, South Coast Regional Executive for British Marine

“An excellent event with very interesting presentations”

– Richard Daltry, ASV Global Ltd, who also gave an exciting presentation on autonomous maritime vessels

The British Marine Electrical & Electronic Association held yet another successful conference at the Novotel Hotel in Southampton on the 10th October. The Chairman, Derek Gilbert, opened the Conference by welcoming the speakers and special guests; he also thanked the Event Sponsors, especially Victron Energy as Headline Sponsors of this year’s event.

The Delegates were treated to a wide range of subject matters during the day, including presentations from Professor Cathryn Mitchell explaining ‘The Resilience and vulnerabilities of GNSS’, Richard Daltry presented an ‘An Overview of Autonomous Vessel Technology’ and Dr Richard Jales Principal Engineer at Raymarine presented ‘The Latest Radar Technologies’.

After lunch, Dan Cox from E-Plex presented ‘How to meet changing customer expectations associated with networked Monitoring and Control systems’, clearly explaining the reasons for forward planning! This session was followed by Jamie Marley describing the issues associated with the Electrification of boat propulsion’.

The series of presentations concluded with a presentation by Ross Wombwell, BM’s Technical Manager who covered ‘Technical updates and a look to the future’ raising issues associated with the latest ISO updates and changes happening within British Marine to adapt to meet the needs of its members.

The formal section of the Conference was completed with the Association’s AGM followed by a round table discussion by all delegates identifying how best to promote the professionalism, qualification, training and quality of British Marine members in general and BMEEA members specifically to consumers.

Apprentice Competition

Jordan Warren and Fred Wills

Running concurrently to the main conference during the afternoon was an apprentice’s competition in which teams from RNLI, Sunseeker and Berthon Boats completed an electrical technical task. The eventual close team winners being Jordan Warren and Fred Wills of Sunseeker.

Both Jordan and Fred received vouchers for tools as part of their award as well as receiving the trophy Sponsored by Navico.

The day was rounded off with presentations of awards for BMEEA’s ‘Product of the Year’, the BMEEA’s ‘Dealer/Installer of the Year, the BMEEA ‘Newly Certificated Electrical Technician of the Year’ and BMEEA’s ‘Newly Certificated Electronic Technician of the Year:

Newly Certificated Electrical Technician of the Year

Henry Castledine

The ‘Newly Certificated Electrical Technician of the Year’ for 2018 was awarded to Henry Castledine from the Berthon Boat Company, on the left and presented here by David Melville of Fischer Panda UK Ltd who kindly sponsored this award.

Newly Certificated Electronic Technician of the Year

Rebekah Hancock

The ‘Newly Certificated Electronic Technician of the Year’ for 2018 was presented to Rebekah Hancock from Mylor Yacht Harbour, presented here by Derek Gilbert, BMEEA Chairman and from Raymarine UK Ltd, the company sponsoring this award.

Dealer\Installer of the Year

Fox’s Electronics Ltd

The ‘Dealer/Installer of the Year’, presented here on the right by Ian Cooke, President elect of British Marine to George McCormick of Fox’s Electronics Ltd

Product of the Year

Fischer Panda UK Ltd – Panda Neo generators

The winner of the ‘Product of the Year’ award was Fischer Panda UK Ltd with a new generator. The award is sponsored by Boating Business and on the right is Katina Read, Editor, presenting the award to David Payne of Fischer Panda.

The presentation of awards was followed by a very entertaining after dinner speaker, Watson, focusing on ‘Enigma, the unbreakable broken’ describing the development of secret codes, the development of the Enigma machines and how they operated as well as the efforts by the teams at Bletchley park to identify the keys required to read coded messages.

BMEEA Chairman Derek Gilbert commented that he was delighted that the Conference had been so well received, the variety and quality of presentations provided thought for all delegates and it was very rewarding to see so many apprentices join the event and participate in the competition.